Routes

Routes define how traffic flows to backend services through Kubernetes Gateway API resources. HTTP and gRPC routes attach to domains and match on hostname, path, and headers. TCP and UDP routes attach to streams and route by listener port.

Route Types

Type	Resource	Attaches to	Use Case
HTTP	HTTPRoute	Domain	REST APIs, web applications
gRPC	GRPCRoute	Domain	gRPC services
TCP	TCPRoute	Stream	Databases, Redis, Kafka, other TCP services
UDP	UDPRoute	Stream	DNS, syslog, other UDP services

HTTP and gRPC routes are hostname-keyed: they match incoming requests by hostname, path, header, method, and query. TCP and UDP routes are port-keyed: they route by the listener port alone, with no Layer-7 matching. See Streams for how TCP and UDP routing works.

Matching Rules

Routes match incoming requests using:

Match Type	HTTP	gRPC
Path	/api/v1/*	N/A
Method	GET, POST	N/A
Headers	X-Version: v2	X-Version: v2
Query Parameters	?debug=true	N/A
Service/Method	N/A	myservice/MyMethod

Backend Configuration

On the route builder's Traffic tab, a route forwards to one or more backends. Each backend is a Kubernetes Service (namespace, service, port) or an external service (address, port). Add more than one backend to split traffic by weight, or mark a backend as a fallback so it only takes traffic when the primaries are unhealthy.

Field	Description
Backend type	Kubernetes Service, or External Service
Service / Port	The target service and port (plus namespace for Kubernetes services)
Weight	Share of traffic (0 to 100) when splitting across backends
Role	Primary, or Fallback for failover

Approval Workflow

Routes follow a controlled deployment process:

Status	Description
Pending	Awaiting approval
Approved	Ready for deployment
Deployed	Active in Kubernetes
Rejected	Approval denied

Traffic Features

Routes support advanced traffic management:

• Timeouts: Request and backend timeouts
• Retries: Automatic retry with backoff
• Rate Limiting: Request throttling
• Circuit Breaker: Failure protection